Russia sanctions: Trump’s refusal to act

Amid the hullabaloo over the Nunes memo, it was easy to miss last week’s “other Russia scandal,” said Michael Carpenter in Politico.com. In response to Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election, Congress last year overwhelmingly passed legislation requiring the U.S. government to sanction any company doing business with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors, and to “publicly name and shame” oligarchs and politicians in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. When the deadline for those actions arrived last week, however, the Trump administration did...neither. White House officials declared that the “mere threat of sanctions” was deterring foreign businesses from dealing with Russia, while the Treasury released a useless list of rich Russians copied from Forbes. The Trump administration had in fact commissioned experts to produce a “serious and targeted list” of corrupt Russians, said Julia Ioffe in TheAtlantic.com. But to the relief of Russia’s “political and business elite,” someone high up in the administration threw out the real list and deliberately released a collection of names “so broad as to be meaningless.”

Don’t jump to conclusions, said David French in NationalReview.com. Trump’s sanctions waiver was “entirely prudent.” Several U.S. allies, including India, are reportedly reconsidering Russian arms deals—so why upset “friends who may well be in the process of voluntary compliance”? And don’t forget that the Trump administration has sent offensive weapons to Ukrainian troops—something President Obama refused to do—as well as imposing Magnitsky Act sanctions on several Russians. “These are not the actions of an administration that’s ‘soft’ on Russia.” Without any public fanfare, Trump’s Cabinet has taken a “laudably hawkish” approach to Putin’s thuggish regime, said Noah Rothman in CommentaryMagazine.com. Trump still “clings to his fantasy of a thaw with Russia”—and officials know that “if they talk too loudly, the president might hear.”

These excuses don’t wash, said Aaron Blake in WashingtonPost.com. Congress ordered sanctions imposed to punish Russia for its election interference—not to deter the regime from future wrongdoing. Besides, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said last week he had “every expectation” that Moscow would try to interfere in this year’s midterms. Trump was opposed to this sanctions bill from the beginning, and it sure does look as if he is “ignoring Congress’ will to cozy up to Moscow.”